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In spite of these impressive numbers, the undisputed king of the electric vehicle market in the U.S. is still Tesla, followed by Chevy, Nissan, Audi, and Porsche. Tesla sold an estimated 71,000 electric vehicles in the U.S. during 2020, for an average of 5,916 per month, according to EV news website CleanTechnica. And that was just the domestic market. For U.S. 2020 EV sales, the Chevy Bolt ran a distant second behind Tesla, coming in at 8,370 sold. The Nissan LEAF and Audi e-tron each sold around 3,000, while about 1,000 Porsche Taycan’s were driven away by new owners.
Differing rates of sales increases When comparing U.S. and Chinese EV manufacturers, things become more interesting when you look at rates of delivery increases or decreases. As noted, the three Chinese players that caught the industry’s attention during the fall have seen rapid acceleration in product deliveries. In the U.S., meanwhile, the top EV manufacturers have seen sales plateau or even decline. Writing in Forbes magazine, business and technology reporter Niall McCarthy reported that sales figures for Tesla’s top-selling model, the Model 3, at 38,314 for the first half of 2020, were “considerably lower compared to the first half of 2019, when they were in the region of 69,000.” Many Tesla buyers appear to be opting instead for the less expensive Model Y, a compact crossover. Meanwhile, “the Nissan LEAF
saw its sales pretty much halved, just two units off a precise 50% drop,” McCarthy wrote. The take of another Forbes reporter, Trefis Team, was that “the Chinese electrical space is booming, with China-based manufacturers accounting for over 50% of global EV deliveries.” [Note the reference to China-based manufacturers, an important distinction we’ll get to in a moment.] Much of this growth appears to be driven by the Chinese government’s demand that about 25% of all new cars sold in China be electric by 2025, a significant increase over today’s proportion of about 5%. The stock of all three of the surging Chinese EV manufacturers trades in U.S. equity markets, and if their price and volume action immediately following the release of the November performance reports is any indication, then the surge in deliveries of Chinese EVs caught investors by surprise. On Dec. 2, all three reported sales figures for November that were as impressive as October’s. Li Auto reported November deliveries that were up 25.8% over October’s, while Nio and Xpeng reported deliveries that were up 109% and 342%, respectively, over November 2019, according to Investor’s Business Daily. That day saw Nio’s stock rise 5.78% and Xpeng’s 6.95%, although Li Auto’s stock was down marginally. Following these releases, investment bank Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock of all three companies and predicted that electric vehicle penetration in China would reach 20% by 2025, somewhat shy of the 25% the Chinese government is aiming for but still well above today’s 5%.
Western manufacturers in China
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But if the manufacture of electric vehicles in China is booming and on a rapid upward trajectory, an increasing number of those autos are being built by western manufacturers, and the flow of western-made EVs to China appears likely to continue exceeding the flow of homegrown Chinese EVs to the West for the foreseeable future. Western EV makers with significant manufacturing operations in China include Tesla and BMW, the latter operating its largest production base worldwide at plants in northeastern China, according to Nikkei Asia. Beginning this year, BMW plans to export its China-produced iX3 electric SUV to Europe. Tesla began shipping units of its Model 3S from a factory in Shanghai to Europe in October. In the short term, homegrown Chinese electric vehicles appear unlikely to find much of an export market in the West, particularly in the U.S. The domestic sales of electric vehicles in China rely heavily on government subsidies, which cover about a third of an EV’s sticker price there. This gives Chinese manufacturers a powerful incentive to design their autos for the domestic market, where cars that are “small, cheap, and slow” are preferred, according to Barron’s. “We call them low-speed EVs, where the maximum speed of the vehicle is no greater than 50 mph,” the magazine quoted Ji Shi, director of automobile equity research at Haitong International Securities, as saying. “My concern is, I’m not sure the United States has the same demand.” EA
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